Desolation
by XxPhoenix FlightxX
Summary: AU Halloween fic. The world is in ruin, and very few have lived thus far without being infected. It's the duty of those who aren't infected to destroy the monsters that plague humanity. However, something more devious is at hand, and the ones behind it all continue to destroy life as we know it. (Rated soft T for minor violence, death, and gore)


**I'm accidentally a day late but no one seemed to notice, so...**

 **This is AU, clearly, and even though it's a Halloween fic, it's not very scary to read, only to read about. Hopefully it's a bit thrilling at the very least.**

The key was to be still. Not drooling and lumbering like most. Keep still, and take them by surprise. Wait for hours, days, weeks, it doesn't matter. Time is nothing. No reason to rush, all that matters is the food. He is crouched, amongst some rubble, the place he once called home, though home is beyond his memory. All that consumes his mind is hunting, feeding, killing. He hasn't moved for days, maybe, and nothing else has either. It is vast and empty here, the wasteland of a crumpled city. No more others, no more food. It will all wander back though, nothing except him can stay still forever and they will all meander back here. Wait. Be still.

There was a sound. Something approaching. It stopped. A moment later something smaller started scurrying around, making its way to him. He tensed. He smelled food nearby and it was tempting to rush out and get it. He was fast, he could catch it, but the element of surprise made it taste so much sweeter. A rabbit came into sight, hopping gently over the debris, nibbling at the sparse weeds here and there. He waited until it had gone by before darting out to catch it.

And then there was nothing.

Early spring, it started. Now it was fall. They had been fighting this battle for over half a year. It didn't get better, Dick just became numb to it. The only way to power through was to forget everything that used to be. None of these things were his friends anymore. All that mattered were protecting the humans, the clean and uninfected. He had it down to an art, really, but it only became more and more difficult over time. Only the stronger and smarter ones had survived this long, both in terms of the humans and infected. It was a giant game of survival of the fittest, and in the end, one species had to be wiped out by the best of the other. The infected weren't all the same. Most were of course, but those had practically been wiped out. The majority of humans had been turned into a zombie-like being, just like in the movies. Slow and stupid, only looking to eat whatever they happened to catch. Within a few months, those stopped being a real problem. It was the metas that were trouble. Infection caused mutations in one's genes but when the DNA was already mutated, it only added to the problem. While normal humans acted like zombies, metas were completely unpredictable. Any monster you could think of, their behavior emanated. Werebeasts, vampires, swamp things, and aliens. God, the aliens... Batman had been after what was left of Superman for three months, trying to keep him isolated down in Antarctica long enough to destroy him. Dick, on the other hand, couldn't bring himself to kill Starfire, and driven her off the planet, praying she never tried to come back. Since then, he promised himself he would never shy away from doing what had to be done to get rid of the monsters, no matter who they used to be.

He was on the island that once held Titans Tower, after picking up signs of life. He pulled a rabbit out of his bag, and let it down, his gun already loaded and cocked. There were no signs of movement when he arrived, and that usually only meant one thing. He just hoped he was wrong. The rabbit took off a few yards, before scarfing down the first bits of vegetation it saw. Eating was an unfortunate rarity for it, so food had a slightly higher priority than getting as far as possible from its captor. Dick watched and waited, heart pounding. Out of nowhere, a figure shot out at it, too fast to be human, and he pulled the trigger before he could second guess it. The figure fell and the rabbit shot off with renewed vigor. Dick ran up, pulling the knife from his belt and getting on one knee, rolling the body over and plunging the knife down into its chest, keeping his eyes mostly closed. Hesitation could cost him his life, and it would be too difficult to do it if he saw who it was first. He always saved mourning for after.

He twisted the knife, making sure the heart was destroyed before looking at the face. His heart seemed to jump into his throat and for a terrible moment he thought he'd made a mistake. He saw the blood around the mouth and over the front of his comrade's shirt, however, and breathed a sigh of relief. Vampire-type. It was good that he'd damaged the heart, then, because a shot to the head wouldn't be enough to stop this one. He pulled out a scrap of paper from his pocket, and unfolded it, looking at the picture printed in faded color on an old magazine page. He took one bloodied finger and pressed a smudged print over the face of this one. Every Titan was in this picture, and every one had to be accounted for. Garfield, for example, had turned into a werebeast, Raven partnering with him as an intelligent yet vengeful demon witch. The red prints were becoming more and more, and even though he got closer to his goal, the burden only got heavier. He should be happy to protect the innocent and get rid of the monsters, but he was only horrified and distraught.

Dick reached up to the face, closing the eyes. He thought hard, knowing that this was no ordinary case, even considering every other meta. Green eyes, blonde curly hair. It wasn't right... Joseph had been a survivor, like him. Not every Titan had been infected and Joseph, aka Jericho, had been part of the last resistance. How the hell did he end up here? Dick stood up, looking around him and asking himself again. How did Joseph end up all the way out here on the island that once held Titans Tower? Far off the coast of Jump city, nearly impossible to get to now that everything had shut down. Not to mention, the last time Dick saw Joseph, he was meeting up with his father, Deathstroke, to look for the rest of his family and try to scope out livable environments. Of course realizing that Deathstroke was Slade would have been a much bigger issue before all this, but for now Dick had decided he could trust Joseph, at least for the time being, and that was enough.

Now, Joseph was one of the infected, and he'd ended up all on his own out here on this island. There were a few bodies with their throats ripped out near the edge, which couldn't have gotten here on their own either. There were so many questions left unanswered, and he didn't like it. His hair stood on end all over his arms and on the back of his neck, picking up the eerie vibe. It was like a campfire story, ending with a big mystery that could only have one answer, and the answer was always something unpleasant.

Dick heard a shift in the rocks, someone taking a heavy step, and he had only seconds to react. He turned and bent back, dodging the strike meant for the back of his head and watching the armored fist fly over his face instead. He put his hands back, catching himself and letting his feet follow through, landing a kick on his attacker before he positioned himself in a crouch, finally looking at this person and seeing exactly who he was dreading he would.

"Slade!" he growled. "I knew you were behind this!"

Instead of denying it like Dick expected, the man said something else. "You don't know the half of it..."

Dick screamed, angry for all his fallen friends, angry that he'd had to kill so many of them so that life could attempt to go on. He rushed forward and began his attack. It was different than when he was fighting Slade as Robin. Back then it was taboo to kill, no matter what, and only once had Robin even attempted to land such a hit, when he was defending Raven from Trigon. Of course, even when Slade's head snapped completely sideways, he just turned it back, so nothing had come of it. Now, though, Dick was fighting Deathstroke. Dick had spent months killing monsters, slaughtering what was left of his friends. It was too much to now be faced with Deathstroke, who had somehow been behind infecting Joseph, his own son, and leaving him here as bait for Dick. That much was clear to him, and for this Deathstroke had to _suffer_.

The man didn't hold back either, however, and they were as evenly matched as ever. The only problem was, as even as their hits and dodges turned out, Deathstroke was much stronger than Dick, landing blow after blow that caused a lot more damage than the boy would be able to take. Dick knew he would lose, and he couldn't let that happen. Even now, when the world was in ruins, Deathstroke was the enemy, and he had to be stopped. Whatever his plan was, no matter what he was doing, even if the stakes were high, Dick couldn't give up. He couldn't let this man *live* anymore.

"Your anger makes you sloppy, Robin, I thought you would have learned that by now." Dick knew it was true, he was furious, but there was something making the man's fighting sloppy as well.

Dick snarled and whipped out his bo staff, cracking it against the man's mask and surprisingly knocking the piece of armor clean off. The front half clattered to the ground and the back half followed momentarily, having nothing to keep it up. Dick had seen the man's face by now, but what shocked him was his eye. Slade had one eye, usually covering his empty eye socket with a patch. Now, however, something took the place of his missing eye, and Dick recognized it immediately.

"Where did you get that?" he asked, pointing an accusing finger at the polished green stone in the man's face. "That's-!"

"Kryptonite, yes," Deathstroke answered, straightening up. "I got it from my old friend, Lex. It keeps even an infected Superman away."

Now Dick understood what was making the man's fighting skills so dull. He knew what prolonged exposure to kryptonite could do to a human, and it wasn't pretty.

"You've gone insane, Slade," he said, keeping a clear distance. "You aren't yourself anymore. You killed your son!"

"And my daughter, for that matter," the man added nonchalantly. "That is, if you consider infection an equivalent to death. You were the one to put a bullet in Joey's head and tear open his heart. You killed him."

Dick was too dumbstruck to argue the logistics of infection with this madman. He was silent for a moment, staring at Slade and looking for any signs at all of remorse, but the man was calm and casual. "You... but why? Why would you let them get infected? Why bring him out here for me to find?"

"How do you cure a disease, Robin?" Slade asked. "You can find a cure a number of ways, and one way is to find someone who's immune and use their blood to develop an antidote. So far, no one is immune."

"You... You're insane!" Dick said again, backing away. "You can't just infect everybody and hope someone is immune to it! There might be no one immune to it, it's a game of chance!"

Even if he was still speaking like a normal person, even if what he said almost made sense, the man was absolutely insane. He'd infected his only children, turned them into monsters. Dick's heart wrenched at the thought of his fallen friend. Joseph had trusted his father, but for nothing.

"I'm right," insisted Slade, stepping slowly closer to Dick, who stepped away. Soon they were circling each other. "It may be cruel but what choice is there? If we don't find a cure we're doomed to extinction."

Dick locked his eyes on a ledge, making sure to be fully aware of it. There was rubble underneath, and the drop could be fatal. He tried not to let Slade get between him and it, but his movement was limited. "That's not the solution to this. Even if someone is immune there's no telling how many people will die before you find them."

"No one has to die, Robin... You don't have to kill any of them."

"Yes I did-!"

"No! Who was Joseph going to harm on his own? Who is Rose going to kill where she's isolated as well? Everyone who isn't monster hunting is tucked away in safe houses. If we find a cure, then we can save those who are left."

"You're wrong, Slade, there is no cure. They've tried that already." Dick remembered the early days, before the infection got to metas. The infection originated from biological warfare, and had been man made. They already had all the samples but no solution. No one could reverse it. "All that's left is to-"

The man shouted, giving a battle cry and suddenly rushing forward to try and knock Dick off the edge of the small cliff, but Dick was already prepared. He dodged, and the man only caught him in the shoulder. Deathstroke couldn't stop in time, and fell down to the ground below. Dick looked down at the gruesome sight, seeing Deathstroke impaled on some re-bar. It came up through his torso and throat, spreading blood over the body and onto the ground. Dick quickly climbed down, staring at the man.

"You're a traitor," Dick said. "You betrayed everyone."

The man managed to choke out his last words, though Dick knew his lungs would be filling up with blood now. "How can I betray anyone when I'm trying to fix the mistake I helped make?"

Dick stared wide-eyed in shock at the man, his shoulder still throbbing where he was hit, trying to make sense of what Slade was saying. "What do you mean you helped make it?"

The man only chuckled, coughing up blood and gasping for breath. He lifted his hand, opening his fingers to reveal a small cylinder, half filled with a blueish-grey fluid. Dick continued to stare, watching the man die and reliving that horrible feeling from before. He knew the answer, but it was too horrifying to grasp. He was weak in the knees, and his vision was getting blurry. He fell to the ground, next to the dead mercenary, and grasped at the vial with trembling fingers.

 _You don't know the half of it._

When Dick accused Deathstroke of being behind all this, he had only meant the death of Joseph, and of this being a trap. How could he have imagined the truth? He knew that the infection had been made on purpose, but on foreign soil. That was the story... He looked at what was in his hands, what was clearly more than a simple glass vial. It was a dart, taken out of some tranquilizer gun and filled with the poisonous virus. Dick looked at his shoulder, just a pinprick showing through the torn fabric of his shirt. Already the area was changing color, his skin had already surpassed being red, and was becoming the sickly grey of every monster roaming the streets. Spots danced in front of his eyes, and he swayed, struggling to stay conscious. All he could think of was the logo on the vial, the image of the company that somehow had made the most progress in learning about the infection. If Slade had a vial of this stuff, he had to have been involved. He had been working with them from the beginning. It was all their idea. Trying to save face...

Dick fell to the ground face-first, his body and his senses shutting down. He put all his focus on reaching into his belt, hands shaking. He couldn't give in. He couldn't add to their numbers after fighting so hard... His gun. It was still loaded. His only chance, just one shot. His hands were shaking terribly now, and he struggled to put the gun to his temple. The farthest he got was up to his chin, but the angle was right. All he needed was a shot to the brain. He curled done finger, twisting it over the trigger, flexing it as hard as he could to squeeze the mechanism and fix this mess.

Then, there was nothing.

 **Eh? Good? Terrible? Let me know! And I was going to let both Slade and Robin live except then I didn't want to get sucked into continuing the story so I offed them both and I think it's a better ending anyway. I'm not planning anything else with this but if you have an idea, the concept is free to use, though I'd prefer credit. By the way, I'm really terrible. I can't write ANYTHING without Jericho can I? Even if he's just dead. Well he fits at least. So sue me. Thanks for reading!**


End file.
